The Servian monarchy having terminated more than half a century before the invention of printing, and most of the manuscripts of the period having been destroyed, or dispersed during the long Turkish occupation, very little is known of the literature of this period except the annals of Servia, by Archbishop Daniel, the original manuscript of which is now in the Hiliendar monastery of Mount Athos.  The language used was the old Slaavic, now a dead language, but used to this day as the vehicle of divine service in all Greco-Slaavic communities from the Adriatic to the utmost confines of Russia, and the parent of all the modern varieties of the Southern and Eastern Slaavic languages.

CHAPTER XXI.

A Battue missed.—­Proceed to Alexinatz.—­Foreign-Office Courier.—­Bulgarian frontier.—­Gipsey Suregee.—­Tiupria.—­New bridge and macadamized road.

The Natchalnik was the Nimrod of his district, and had made arrangements to treat me to a grand hunt of bears and boars on the Jastrabatz, with a couple of hundred peasants to beat the woods; but the rain poured, the wind blew, my sport was spoiled, and I missed glorious materials for a Snyders in print.  Thankful was I, however, that the element had spared me during the journey in the hills, and that we were in snug quarters during the bad weather.  A day later I should have been caught in the peasant’s chimneyless-hut at the foot of the Balkan, and then should have roughed it in earnest.

When the weather settled, I was again in motion, ascending that branch of the Morava which comes from Nissa.  There was nothing to remark in this part of Servia, which proved to be the least interesting part of our route, being wanting as well in boldness of outline as in luxuriant vegetation.

On approaching a khan, at a short distance from Alexinatz, I perceived an individual whom I guessed to be the captain of the place, along with a Britannic-looking figure in a Polish frock.  This was Captain W——­, a queen’s messenger of the new school.

While we were drinking a cup of coffee, a Turkish Bin Bashi came upon his way to Belgrade from the army of Roumelia at Kalkendel; he told us that the Pasha of Nish had gone with all his force to Procupli to disarm the Arnaouts.  I very naturally took out the map to learn where Procupli was; on which the Bin Bashi asked me if I was a military engineer!  “That boy will be the death of me!”—­so nobody but military engineers are permitted to look at maps.

For a month I had seen or heard nothing of Europe and Europeans except the doctor at Csatsak, and his sage maxims about Greek masses and Hungarian law-suits.  I therefore made prize of the captain, who was an intelligent man, with an abundance of fresh political chit-chat, and odds and ends of scandal from Paddington to the Bank, and from Pall-mall to Parliament-street, brimful of extracts and essences of Athenaeums, United-Services,